This is the picture on the front page of FoxNews.Com from this morning. This is Cho Seung-Hui, a student from South Korea, apparently an English major. What was the motive? I guess authorities are still trying to figure it out.
It may be too soon for a post like this, but it's what I'm thinking right now, and I just have to get it out there. Unfortunately, this is not the first shooting to occur on a school campus. Back in November, Dr. Deb wrote about a Map of School Violence between 1995 and 2005. At the end of her post, she posed this question - "What can be done to minimize such violence?" Here was my comment:
Dr. A said...History is repeating itself again with the blame game. There are already early articles being written asking whether there were Too Few Warnings at Virginia Tech? The outrage is beginning to build against the university and university officials.This is a very emotional issue, and the really sad part is that no one wants to take ownership of the problem. Everyone blames everyone else for the problem whether is blaming school officials to "not keeping school safe" to blaming parents for "not bring up kids right" to the media to exposing kids to too much violence.
Until someone steps up and accepts even a little responsibility for the problem, the blame game will continue and more children will be harmed - or even killed.
November 03, 2006 1:09 PM
Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.Of course, people are outraged by this situation. I'm outraged by what happened. But, I've seen this too many times. We are shocked by what happened, we mourn the victims, we blame whomever we need to blame for what happened, then we go back to our apathy until the next tragedy happens.Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."
"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.
Well, I'm sick and tired of this useless cycle. Instead of outrage turning into apathy, let's turn outrage into action. And, I'm not talking about knee-jerk reactions like firing some university official somewhere or a more strict student visa process or permanent resident visa process - like what's being talked about now.
Um, uh, wait a minute. As I think about things now (a couple of hours after starting to write this post), I'm thinking about what realistically can happen? Would it mean a radical change in American culture? A culture that celebrates violence? A culture that makes celebrities out of people like Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and Cho Seung-Hui. Here's the latest press on this killer from the Chicago Tribune:
The suspected gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, Cho Seung-Hui, was a troubled 23-year-old senior from South Korea who investigators believe left an invective-filled note in his dorm room, sources say.Unfortunately, this is a culture that shirks at the idea of accountability. A culture that believes that it's someone else's job to fix the problem. A country and culture that feels no personal investment to fix its own problems. Am I wrong here? Please tell me I'm wrong. Is there a realistic way to curb the violence on school/college campuses?The note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. They said Cho also died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his arms.
Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women.
A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.